Libya and the World in 2011: A Higher Calling

On February 21, 2011, Libyan military aircraft fired live ammunition at crowds of anti-government protesters in Tripoli. "What we are witnessing today is unimaginable," said Adel Mohamed Saleh, an activist in the capital. "Warplanes and helicopters are indiscriminately bombing one area after another. There are many, many dead." Arabiya television put the number killed on that day alone at 160. Gadhafi's son had vowed on television the day before that his father and security forces would fight "until the last bullet." I suspect that few people were surprised to find that Gadhafi would mount a sustained vituperative effort against the pro-democracy movement that was sweeping through the Middle East. "These really seem to be last, desperate acts. If you're bombing your own capital, it's really hard to see how you can survive, " said Julien Barnes-Dacey, Control Risks' Middle East analyst. "But I think Gaddafi is going to put up a fight ... in Libya more than any other country in the region, there is the prospect of serious violence and outright conflict," he said. As the world received reports of the massacre, a latent question not being asked was whether the world (or even a coalition therein in case of a holdout like China) has the right or an obligation to intervene militarily to stop the offending regime against its own defenseless people. I contend that there is such a right and moral obligation--meaning that national sovereignty does not extend to crimes against humanity. Sadly, at the time of the Libyan protests and Gaddafi's retaliation, the world's government offiicals were still largely impotent and disorganized.

Even if not sufficiently for his regime to collapse, Gadhafi's obstinancy was being undercut right out from beneath him. As the the military was escalating its attack on unarmed citizens inside Libya, something else--something rather astonishing--was happening. Rather than putting up a united front to the world against the opposition, the government showed itself to consist of men whose participation in Gadhafi's government was not unconditional. Could it be that the Nuremburg verdicts against the Nazis in 1948--the ruling that blind obedience is not excuse for even government offiicals and employees being held accountable--was finally being heard?  That is to say, might it be that in addition to conscience, the emerging judicial enforcement at the International Criminal Court was having a slight (but significant) impact even as crimes against humanity were being committed?Libya's former ambassador to the Arab League in Cairo, Abdel-Moneim al-Houni, who a day earlier resigned from his post to side with protesters, issued a statement demanding Gadhafi "be put on trial along with his aides, security and military commanders over the mass killings in Libya." Were the former ambassador's warning having a real impact in real-time on government offiicals, this would evince real progress for the human race. Specifically, the realization by oificials while they are in power that they might be held accountable for their role in harming their own people could, with the help of conscience, mitigate how far a regime can go in "punishing" its people for their natural proclivity to protest injustice.  There is some evidence that government officials who might have held tough a decade earlier were having second thoughts and, crucially, acting on them.

For example, as the Libyan military was trouncing on marching mourners, Justice minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil reportedly resigned from his post to protest the "excessive use of force against unarmed protesters." Also, at least two Libyan air force pilots defected to Malta rather than shoot on defenseless citizens. Lastly, Libyan diplomats abroad explicitly backed off supporting the country's dictator. For example, a Libyan diplomat in China, Hussein el-Sadek el-Mesrati, told Al-Jazeera, "I resigned from representing the government of Mussolini and Hitler." Even more astonishing, Libya's ambassadors at the United Nations called for Gadhafi to step down as the country's ruler. Deputy Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi said that if Gadhafi does not relinquish power, "the Libyan people will get rid of him." The staff of Libya's mission to the United Nations declared allegiance to the people of Libya, instead of to Gadhafi, a spokesman said on the day on which Libyan jet fighters turned on the citizens they were to protect. Traditionally, it has been thought that governments are the members of international bodies such as the UN.  That it might actually be the people of a country who are represented in a confederation would be revolutionary (this is typically thought to be in part the case in a federal government, rather than in an alliance or strictly international organization). Ambassadors representing a regime conditionally goes along with al-Houni's statement even on the day when bullets sprayed on the Libyan people from the air, "Gadhafi's regime is now in the trash of history because he betrayed his nation and his people." In other words, Gadhafi's regime had already lost its legitimacy, and thus its right to represent the people abroad (and at home). 

To be sure, autocratic regimes are not necessarily populated by people of concience or even foresight (e.g., concerning possible prosecution at the ICC or even domestically). When Gandhi was asked how non-violent non-cooperation could ever hope to work against an invading and occupying Nazi force, he acknowledged that many would be harmed for the sake of truth, but ultimately the dictators are already destined to the trash-bin of history. Progress comes by painfully slow steps in this world of flawed humanity.  One novelist on the American Civil War observed, if we are angels, then surely we are killer angels. Was it some cruel joke? one might ask God.  Why?  Yet if the pro-democracy movement in the Middle East could teach us--meaning all of us--anything, it might be that we, acting together, can push the boulder a bit further up the hill. We need no longer accept the existence of regimes that betray their people, and in February of 2011 the world realized its efficacy in making this so. It is as if in one voice we finally exclaimed, "No, we will not go softly into the night. We will stand up and they will back down!"

As the people in the Middle East were pushing up against the dead weight of history, the rest of us were with them--indeed, being transfixed and humbled by them as they marched against dazed tyrants who had not yet realized that their day had already passed quietly into the night to be replaced by the first light of another dawn. Perhaps, just perhaps, there is a progression in the eternal recurrence of night and day.

Source:

"Gadhafi: 'I'm in Tripoli, not Venezuela," February 22, 2011. NBCNews.com.

The Turkish President’s Men Attack Americans on American Soil : An Outlandish Presumptuousness at Odds with Human Rights

It is one thing to read about human-rights violations going on in another country; it is quite another to see such a country’s president’s men attacking people of another country in their own country. Besides the added perspective that such an act gives to people in that country, the mentality itself is made transparent in terms of its sheer presumptuousness. In other words, the presumptuousness that may be viewed as latent in a human-rights violation inflicted by government officials and their respective employees on their own soil is made particularly transparent, or obvious, when the violation is against foreigners on their own soil.

In May, 2017, 24 men, including armed employees of President Recep Erdogan’s security detail, attacked protesters, many of whom were American citizens, in Washington. Sitting in a car, Erdogan “conferred with Muhsin Kose, his head of security, who leaned into the car’s rear door.”[1] After speaking with Erdogan, Kose “talked into his earpiece, and three security personnel who were guarding the president’s car hurried toward the protest. The brawl began moments later, and one of these men . . . appeared on video punching and kicking people.”[2] That is, a few seconds after Kose spoke into his earpiece, the men charged the protesters, kicking and hitting them. Kose talked with his president as the Turkish security men attacked the Americans. “One man knocked two women to the ground, and another man repeatedly punched Lucy Usoyan, a protester, as she lay on the ground. The third man kicked  ]Sayid Yasa] after he was thrown to the ground moments earlier.”[3] It is the lack of any violent trigger that is particularly noteworthy.

I submit that the intent to punch and kick people who had not themselves been violent points to a desire to inflict pain for its own sake. The sadistic mentality loses the cover of “government security” legitimacy when no inciting violence can provide a trigger. Instead, the trigger is in the psychology shared by the 24 men who initiated the violence. One implication is that government officials and their employees who respectively order and commit human-rights violations against their own people suffer from mental illness rather than being merely politically partisan.

The presumptuousness in instigating violent acts without a violent trigger is particularly evident in the sheer gall in attacking the American citizens in their own country rather than in Turkey. It is amazing how difficult presumptuousness can be to detect when it is so engrained in a person’s status quo. The secular humanist, for instance, who takes pride of convenience in having the title, Rev., and being the “minister” of a church or even a religious society can be said to act presumptuously in tacitly turning down (i.e., not welcoming) potential religious or spiritual members. Once such a church or religious society strangely eschews anything not in keeping with secularity, the implicit presumptuousness can be difficult to discern.

The presumptuousness of the Turks in Washington, D.C. goes beyond a lack of respect for American criminal law and the U.S. Constitution, which protects political protest. The underlying attitude would fall under the radar in Turkey, where government is not expected to protect and advance the cause of human rights. In the United States, however, the offending attitude was obvious. It can be likened to a house-guest who not only does not clean up his mess, but also hits the host’s friends after getting a call from his boss from work to do so. The mentality goes beyond rudeness and even disrespect to even being pathological. The host would be totally justified in not only kicking out the offensive guest, but also calling the police to report the violence.

So it is telling, on the American side, that the D.C. police did not stop the aggressive foreigners—even if they had diplomatic immunity they could have been stopped and even detained, yet only two people were arrested—one from New York City. In fact, video shows a D.C. police agent clubbing a protester!  

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department merely voiced concern over “the violent incidents involving protesters and Turkish security personnel.”[4] It is significant, I contend, that the American president did not show Erdogan and his employees the proverbial door. Such betrayal of the American citizens, even implicitly in just voicing concern, must certainly have felt to the protesters like insult added to injury. In fact, the abject failure of the local police and the U.S. Government to go after the Turkish criminals on behalf of the American protesters implies tacit approval or even likeness to the pathology and political authoritarianism—suggesting that risks to human-rights exist in the U.S. rather than just in other countries. The sin of omission, in other words, can shed light on a sordid mentality or attitude.

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[1] Malachy Browne, Christ Cirillo, Troy Griggs, Josh Keller, and Natalie Reneau, “Did the Turkish President’s Security Detail Attack Protesters in Washington? What the Video Shows,” The New York Times, May 26, 2017.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Max Jaeger, “State Dept. Condemns Turkish Security’s Bloody Attack on Protesters,” New York Post, May 17, 2017.

Pope Francis on Climate Change: The Mutually-Reinforcing Impacts of Power, Wealth, and Culture

Writing in 2015, Pope Francis addressed the problem of climate change and suggested what he, or the Vatican more broadly, considered to be necessary systemic changes on the road to recovery. In the encyclical, the patient may be human nature itself—specifically, its self-destructive propensity and trait of power-aggrandizement. In other words, we had lost control of our built-up (i.e., artificial) societal systems and structures, which could wind up strangling us in their protection of the status quo. In this essay, I discuss the Pope’s portrayal of the problem of climate change from the standpoints of culture, power, and wealth. I then address the feasibility of the Pope’s prescription.

“A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system,” the pope reported.[1] In recent decades this warming had been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if a scientifically determinable cause could not be assigned to each particular phenomenon. At the time, India, Pakistan, and parts of western North America were either in or soon to be in heat-waves.

In the encyclical, Pope Francis turns to what he viewed as more subtle causes of the climate change. “The problem is aggravated by a model of development based on the intensive use of fossil fuels, which is at the heart of the worldwide energy system. Another determining factor has been an increase in changed uses of the soil, principally deforestation for agricultural purposes.” These “man-made” contributors in turn set in motion natural contributors. “The melting in the polar ice caps and in high altitude plains can lead to the dangerous release of methane gas, while the decomposition of frozen organic material can further increase the emission of carbon dioxide. Things are made worse by the loss of tropical forests which would otherwise help to mitigate climate change. Carbon dioxide pollution increases the acidification of the oceans and compromises the marine food chain. If present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us.” Put another way, the CO2 already in the atmosphere—at approximately 400 ppm—had already triggered natural processes beyond the reach of human technology. The resulting climatic shift could easily outpace the ability of biological evolution to adapt. Given the historical role of the Creationism-Evolution false-dichotomy, the pope’s reference to evolution is striking.

Undergirding the role of fossil fuels, the pope highlights socio-economic and political obstacles. “Regrettably, many efforts to seek concrete solutions to the environmental crisis have proved ineffective, not only because of powerful opposition but also because of a more general lack of interest. Obstructionist attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions. We require a new and universal solidarity.”

The pope evinces very little patience for such attitudes. He was hardly alone. "We are not here today to debate whether or not climate change is real. We are not here to debate whether or not human activity is contributing to that. These questions have been settled by science," U. S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said a week after the Vatican’s release of the encyclical.[2] On the same day, the 2015 Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change came out with its report.[3] More severe heat waves, longer allergy seasons, and decreased urban air-quality were already erasing gains made in public health, according to the report.[4] It's like a cigarette smoker with lung problems,” a Commission official said at the time. “Doctors can treat the disease, but the first thing that has to be done is to get the patient to stop smoking, or in this case get off coal in the next five years.”[5] In short, the world—or, more precisely, the species—no longer had the luxury of denial; in fact, radical change was urgently needed.

Formidable, well-entrenched forces nevertheless stood in the way. In fact, some were actually urging environmental deregulation. Accordingly, the pope charges ahead. “Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change.” This is not enough. “Caring for ecosystems demands far-sightedness, since no one looking for quick and easy profit is truly interested in their preservation. But the cost of the damage caused by such selfish lack of concern is much greater than the economic benefits to be obtained.” In other words, an expedient, selfish mentality—doubtless rooted in human nature itself—has been a steady obstacle to caring for ecosystems such that the species made in God’s image might long endure.

Additionally, organizational and societal artifacts have been erected in line with the sordid mentality. Indeed, the pope claims that “many of these symptoms indicate that such effects will continue to worsen if we continue with current models of production and consumption.” Privileging “short-sighted approaches to the economy, commerce and production,” those models do not adequately absorb externalities—such as costs borne by the environment because firms can evade them. Whereas “the way natural ecosystems work is exemplary: plants synthesize nutrients which feed herbivores; these in turn become food for carnivores, which produce significant quantities of organic waste which give rise to new generations of plants. But our industrial system, at the end of its cycle of production and consumption, has not developed the capacity to absorb and reuse waste and by-products. We have not yet managed to adopt a circular model of production.” The circular system of inputs, manufacture, and use is not sufficiently closed. On the input end, natural resources are depleted. On the output end, waste piles up in the “throwaway culture,” whether in the oceans or in the air.

Unfortunately, culture and leadership can wind up reinforcing each other in favor of the status quo. “The problem is that we still lack the culture needed to confront this crisis. We lack leadership capable of striking out on new paths and meeting the needs of the present with concern for all and without prejudice towards coming generations.” We lack principled leaders with the guts to stand up to the corporate patrons whose disproportionate impact on democracies gives the vested interests in the status quo a veto on real change. The inherent conflict of interest is of course ignored. Additionally, people are too willing to enable the denial espoused in some of their respective leaders’ rhetoric. “As often occurs in periods of deep crisis which require bold decisions, we are tempted to think that what is happening is not entirely clear. Superficially, apart from a few obvious signs of pollution and deterioration, things do not look that serious, and the planet could continue as it is for some time. Such evasiveness serves as a licence to carrying on with our present lifestyles and models of production and consumption. This is the way human beings contrive to feed their self-destructive vices: trying not to see them, trying not to acknowledge them, delaying the important decisions and pretending that nothing will happen.” A cultural mentality ensconced in a throwaway society reinforces the leaders of denial.

Furthermore, the live-for-today mentality societally in an era of technological advancement proffers a blind faith in technology as savoir. “Following a period of irrational confidence in progress and human abilities,” Francis writes, “we find those who doggedly uphold the myth of progress and tell us that ecological problems will solve themselves simply with the application of new technology and without any need for ethical considerations or deep change.” The incrementalism itself may reflect the nature of the production model based on Frederick Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management. The pope points to the tunnel-vision inherent in such an approach. “Technology, which, linked to business interests, is presented as the only way of solving these problems, in fact proves incapable of seeing the mysterious network of relations between things and so sometimes solves one problem only to create others.

Not even human pride in our sapiens brain can touch the intricate complexity in Creation as evinced in natural laws. “The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. At the global level, it is a complex system linked to many of the essential conditions for human life.” The precariousness of conditions consistent with human life is invisible next to the observed constancy through a “long life” and, moreover, the length of human history. “Many people will deny doing anything wrong,” the Pope maintains, “because distractions constantly dull our consciousness of just how limited and finite our world really is.” The subtle premise that tomorrow will be like today is so hardwired into the human psyche that we are vulnerable to environmental shocks.

Not unexpectedly, the pope assumes a distinctly religious perspective. Rather than selfishly padding our own nests in excess to what is natural (not to mention necessary) within a narrow perspective, “we are called to be instruments of God our Father, so that our planet might be what he desired when he created it and correspond with his plan for peace, beauty and fullness.” Seeing himself as such an instrument, the Pope goes beyond the problem itself to propose possible steps toward a solution.

Given the tyranny of the status quo and its formidable defenders, the pope argues that the “establishment of a legal framework which can set clear boundaries and ensure the protection of ecosystems has become indispensable.” The pope is proposing here that some governmental sovereignty be transferred to the global level because relying on nation-states to deal with the externalities (i.e., CO2 emissions) had only resulted in dismal results. In other words, the nation-state system itself (and the disproportionate influence therein of business interests) had become incompatible with the new problem, which is inherently global and thus potentially treated at that scale, politically speaking.

“It is remarkable,” the pope observes, “how weak international political responses have been. The failure of global summits on the environment makes it plain that our politics are subject to technology and finance. There are too many special interests, and economic interests easily end up trumping the common good and manipulating information so that their own plans will not be affected.” According to the pope, “economic powers continue to justify the current global system where priority tends to be given to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain, which fail to take the context into account, let alone the effects on human dignity and the natural environment.” In other words, plutocracy—wherein wealth rules—combined with the externalities-problem of the nation-state system rendered continued reliance on the extant system of geo-politics nothing short of a fool’s errand. In fact, the reliance could be classified as self-destructive from the species’ standpoint.

Jean-Jacque Rousseau, a seventeenth-century philosopher, wrote in his treatise, The Social Contract, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” At least with respect to the tyranny of the industrial and political status quo, those chains are entirely of our own making. It is easy to point to theoretical freedom, and yet quite another to stand up to the paymasters in order to hem them in such that the maximizing species will not pierce the semi-permeable membrane of the Earth’s habitat for humanity. If a transfer of governmental sovereignty to a global entity is needed to stave off additional climate change, who’s to say that large multinational corporations won’t capture that power too? Moreover, how many government officials would willingly give up some power to a global organization that could hold them accountable? At the time, the U.S. would not even agree to be bound by the International Criminal Court. Also, neither China nor Russia—defenders of the notion of absolute sovereignty, or “internal affairs”—would likely consent to be bound by a global entity that could be dominated by the U.S. and the E.U. In short, if the Vatican’s assessment and prescription are correct, the species made in God’s image might turn out to be a flickering image on the mask of eternity.

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1. Pope Francis, “Encyclical Letter Laudato Si,” All quotes from the Pope in this essay are from this source.

2. Kate Sheppard, “Surgeon General Calls Climate Change a ‘Serious Immediate and Global Threat to Human Health’,” The Huffington Post, June 23, 2015.

3. The Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change, “Health and Climate Change: Policy Responses to Protect Public Health,” The Lancet, June 23, 2015.

4. Sheppard, “Surgeon General.”

5. Seth Borenstein, “Panel of Doctors Give a Warming Earth a Physical and Say Kick the Coal Habit Immediately,” US News and World Report, June 22, 2015.

Israel vs. Gaza: Why Does the World Tolerate Unfair Fights within Countries?

In the very nature of occupation and in particular its attribute of a near-monopoly on military force within a given territory, the superior power is essentially inert to any normative constraints, whether from within or abroad. Such power can be drunk with anger, blatantly ignoring what even allies recognize as blatantly unfair actions. That such power may actually perceive the unfairness as fair to the innocent victims demonstrates just how much cognitive dissonance a human brain consumed with its will to power can muster, let alone tolerate, as a mental shield hiding the naked aggression. To be sure, it takes two to get tangled in a fight, so rarely is either party "the bad guy." Yet major dimensions of a conflict can be sliced and put under the proverbial microscope for close examination. Tolerance for an unfair fight, whether involving a rapist, a school-yard bully, or an occupying state, is problematic in not only the predominant aggressor but also any bystanders. In the case of Israel and Gaza in July 2014, the lopsidedness of the death-tolls stands out, as does the tacit refusal of the international community to step in and stop the fight as a result. 

After six days of missile-fire, the death-toll in Gaza had reached 156, with over 1,060 wounded. The U.N. estimated that 77% of the dead had been civilians.  Israel’s 1,200 airstrikes targeted some inherently civilian areas, including a center for the disabled, a mosque, and the home of the Gaza police chief. [1] Despite Israeli claims of having issued warnings, families were killed in their homes because they had not had time enough to leave before being hit. 

Meanwhile, Israel incurred no fatalities and only five people were injured.[2] Many of Hamas’ 700 missiles were intercepted by the U.S.-funded anti-missile “Iron dome.” In the past, such enabling prompted deadly hatred of Israel’s major financial and military supplier. Hence, refusing to do more than condemn the violence represented a long-term risk to the U.S. As if slapping the hand that was feeding it, the Israeli prime minister ignored the American president's pleas—doubtlessly confident of the power of the Jewish lobby in Washington, and thus of continued American aid of over $3 billion a year.[3]  Furthermore, prime minister Netanyahu defied the U.N. Security Council’s unanimous call for a cease-fire by unabashedly insisting there was no end in sight to the offensive.[4] Yet the international organization did not sanction Israel or cancel its membership. Internationally, parchment is particularly impotent when it comes to constraining an energized will to power; ethical suasion is like tissue-paper tossed in front of an accelerating train.  

All that hardware, in spite of any fatalities to justify the escalation. (Image Source: AFP)

In fact, the Israeli military was actually widening its bombing targets and extending the offensive to include troops on the ground. Four days into the foray of tanks and troops into Gaza, UNICEF reported that "the overwhelming majority of people killed so far are Palestinians."[5] Specifically, more than 500 had been killed, 121 of whom were Palestinian children, while 29 Israelis, all but one having been killed in the line of duty, had died.[6] As the incursion continued, the ratio widened, especially in regard to civilians killed. 

As of July 31, 2014

On August 3rd, Israel dropped a bomb on a U.N. school that was sheltering displaced civilians, killing 10 of them.[7] The Israeli government pointed to a Palestinian rocket launch nearby the school. Refusing to accord this claim legitimating status, Robert Turner, the operations director for the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza, noted that the "locations of all these institutions [had] been passed to the Israeli military multiple times. They know where these shelters are. . . . How this continues to happen, I have no idea."[8] He concluded that the attack violates international law. "It is a moral outrage and a criminal act," he declared.[9] This moral problem can be distinguished from not only the legal argument, but also the unfairness of the quantitative imbalance in the number of deaths. Counting the attack on the shelter, 1,800 Palestinians and 60 Israelis had been killed in the conflict so far.

Escalation is also discernable in terms of the Israeli goals. Initially, the intent was to continue firing rockets until the rockets from Hamas stopped. Then, the ground offensive would go on until all the tunnels had been destroyed, though the actual extended goal may have been to fight until Hamas becomes paralyzed not only militarily, but politically too, within Gaza. At the very least, killing as many Hamas fighters and supporters as possible would mean that the party would not likely win another election in Gaza. It could indeed be said that in escalating its objectives, therefore, the Israeli government was being opportunistic. 

To be sure, Hamas had hardly been blameless; my intent here is not to defend that organization or even the Palestinian cause; rather, I am isolating a stark element of unfairness in the immediate fight in order to ask why human beings generally appear to be so willing to put power or political dynamics ahead of normative constraints. To maintain my focus on this particular imbalance in juxtaposition to the ethical principle of a fair fight, I am excluding property damage and even injury counts on both sides. In focusing on the death tolls exclusively, I am treating actual (rather than anticipated) deaths as constituting the bottom-line and asking why the people in the Israeli government and in governments around the world did not say in actions, "Ok, enough is enough; the actual (i.e., immediate) fighting has to end now, and we're going to step in and stop it." 

If the exchange of rocket-fire and Israel's ground offensive were part of a boxing match, the referee would have stopped the fight lest the stronger fighter, drunk with overwhelming power, kill the other man three or four times over. In such a case, a politically impotent referee would represent quite a danger, as would the aggressor of course. Faire le dessus est prévaloir; l’autre prérit.

Why did the world look on, "demanding" an immediate cease fire but yet refusing to put actions behind those words to make them stick? Even the Arab neighbors were uncharacteristically quiet, no doubt in part because some had internal rebellions of their own to keep contained. Moreover, power and money in support of Israel around the world, as well as the ironic generalized sense of deserved accommodation due to the Nazi holocaust in the twentieth century, have explanatory value. However, I submit that the inordinate weight that government officials around the world and the officials and members of international bodies such as the U.N. put on the doctrine of national sovereignty is also a key ingredient. 

Regarding the supervening power in the conflict, an opportunistic, escalating platform is two degrees of freedom from what the huge imbalance of killing ought ethically to have triggered in even the aggressor human beings. Perhaps our species fights to the death when given the chance; through the 1.8 million years in which our ancestors lived in small, vulnerable bands rather than large, complex social arrangements such as societies, nations, and a global community, forces of natural selection likely favored overkill given the threats from strangers and wild animals. Such an evolved instinctual defense-mechanism is not well suited for the socio-political artifices our organized predecessors built up in the blink of an eye. I contend that our structures magnify both the intensity and extent of the now-bad instinct to take out our adversaries before they can subjugate or kill us. Even in the fifth century, Augustine pointed to war as evidence that our species could be “far more cruel and bloodthirsty than wild animals.”[10] Both the underlying instinct and the organized extensions of warfare are relevant here. In other words, to account both for the lack of intervention internationally and the Israeli government officials’ escalation of the unfair fight, I find the source in the human instinct to wield power over other people, whether individually or grouped by some criterion often related to the power-interest, and from this basis I broaden out to how the urge is extended through human artifice.

In 1963 at Yale, Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment in which local residents selected at random operated what they thought were escalating electric shocks to other subjects in a "memory test." Actors played both those other subjects and the experts in lab coats whose task it was to have the true subjects increase the shock level at each successive wrong answer. In spite of the (recordings of) screams, 65% of the electric shock administrators (i.e., the real subjects) pulled the lever marked "XXX deadly electric shock." The subjects could not see the recipients, but could hear the (recorded) screams. Even this distance from the harm was sufficient for the majority of the subjects to administer what they thought was a fatal shock to punish a wrong answer to a memory test (which of course was rigged).

Although the lesson taken from the experiment concerned the extent to which human beings will do immoral acts in following orders, the fact that implementers throughout organizations use devices like gate-keeping to amass power, the subjects of the experiment can also be suspected as going ahead in part out of the pleasure that comes in exercising power over another human being. Psychological and physical distance from the target only tilts the balance further in the direction of succumbing to the pressure of a superior and putting the anticipated pleasure before any ethical reservations. I contend that this dynamic applies in the case of the Israeli government officials and military officers (and troops), owing in large part to the huge surplus of power at their fingertips over the Palestinians in Gaza. This is not to say that the same dynamic applies also to the Palestinians behind the rockets going into Israel, albeit with much less potent power and thus intensity. 

Making matters worse both with respect to the intensity of the dynamic and the scope of its destructiveness, the doctrine of absolutist national sovereignty has acted as an enabler. The artifice that came of age as complex social arrangements (i.e., the nation-state) expanded in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe is far indeed from the state of nature, even as the doctrine gives the unsavory instinct more free rein. In addition to the larger territory and increased population subject to a government's military might, the power of the already powerful is magnified by its virtual monopoly made possible by the high external walls constructed out of the doctrine. 

As Hobbes advocates in Leviathan, the sovereign is to have all power in a kingdom or republic, to stave off civil war (Hobbes' own century being particularly bloody in this regard) and external interference from sovereigns of other countries. The people are thus at the mercy of the sovereign, who not only makes and enforces civic law, but interprets it and divine law too. 

Yet as the Hebrew Bible points out, the Abrahamic deity tends to have the last word, particularly with an unrighteous, unjust Israel. Of course, Yahweh also ostensibly had the ancient Hebrews commit genocide at Jerico because its occupants would not convert from worshipping Baal. Whether from an ethical or religious standpoint, it is difficult to see what normative force could possibly counter the natural proclivity of superordinate power and the tacit enabling of third parties.

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1. Khaled Khazziha and Mohammed Daraghmeh, “Israel Widens Gaza Bombing Targets, Deploys Ground Troops,” The Associated Press, July 12, 2014.

2. BBC News, “UN Calls for Israel-Gaza Ceasefire,” July 12, 2014.

3.U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel. Congressional Research Service report. April 11, 2013
4. Khaled Khazziha and Mohammed Daraghmeh, “Israel Widens Gaza Bombing Targets, Deploys Ground Troops,” The Associated Press, July 12, 2014.
5.Reuters, "In Gaza, No Safe Place For Civilians: UN," The World Post, July 22, 2014.
6. Ibid.
7. Associated Press, "Strike Near UN School in Gaza Leaves 10 Dead," The World Post, August 3, 2014.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibld.
10. Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture (Harper and Row: New York, 1987), p. 171. See Augustine, City of God, 3.14; 12.22.

Syria: Democracy vs. An International Norm

Democracy is hardly simple, given that the momentary will of the people can be distinguished in at least some cases from what is in the people’s own best interest. Part of the job of an elected representative is discerning or judging under which of the two a given vote should be based. Adding to the complexity are the additional judgments concerning how much weight to give campaign contributors and lobbyists who have a vested interest in the vote. All this certainly applied to the decision on whether the U.S. should use limited missile strikes against the Syrian government as a means of enforcing the international norm and treaty banning chemical weapons. Such decisions should neither be made to satisfy the immediate passions of the people nor on the behest of defense contractors. That is to say, neither mob-rule nor the military-industrial complex should eclipse the best interest of the people.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) said in a radio interview in late August, 2013, "I did notice, for what it's worth, that the manufacturer of the missiles that would be used has had an incredible run in their stock value in the last 60 days. Raytheon stock is up 20 percent in the past 60 days as the likelihood of the use of their missiles against Syria becomes more likely. So I understand that there is a certain element of our society that does benefit from this, but they're not the people who vote for me, or by the way the people who contribute to my campaign," he said. "Nobody wants this except the military-industrial complex."[1]

Raytheon stock had in fact surged over the preceding two months, though it's been slightly shy of 20 percent.

"I take the title of representative seriously,” Grayson continued. “I listen to people, I hear what they have to say. At a time when we are cutting veterans benefits, cutting education, student loans, cutting school budgets, contemplating cutting Social Security and Medicare, I don't see how we can justify spending billions of dollars on an attack like this." It is difficult indeed to put the intangible long-term benefits of enforcing international norms over flesh and blood human beings having to choose between food and paying the rent. This is perhaps the strongest argument for an international coalition wherein the costs of militarily enforcing a global security norm are spread out rather than incurred by "the world's police," which, by the way, has not charged the world for its services.

As the popular press headlined the debate in the U.S. on whether to engage militarily, opinion polls back up Grayson's assessment of people's attitude toward Syria. The Ipsos-Reuters poll, for example, had found “a 60 percent to 9 percent majority of Americans saying that the U.S. should not intervene in the conflict, although that poll did not test support for specific ways of intervening. In that poll, a 46 percent to 25 percent plurality of respondents said that the U.S. shouldn't intervene, even if the Syrian government has used chemical weapons.”[2] On September 1, 2013, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced that evidence of sarin gas had finally be established. Although the Syrian government could not be linked to the use, it is significant, Kerry, argued, that the missiles in all of the chemical attacks had all come from government-controlled areas and landed in rebel strongholds. Essentially, the argument is that Assad had been engaging in “collective justice” wherein an entire group are punished for the unjust deeds of a few.

With proof that chemical weapons known to be stockpiled by the Syrian government had been used, we can say that at the time, 25% rather than only 9% of Americans approved of U.S. military action to punish the Syrian government for having breached the international norm (and treaty) that had been in force since the end of World War I. Even so, a quarter of the people cannot be taken as the will of the people. Not that U.S. foreign and military policy should necessarily reflect that which the people would prefer.

For one thing, the public was not privy to the classified reports being given to the U.S. President, and on to members of Congress and their staffs. Secondly, enforcing an international norm, whether alone or in a coalition, may not be of immediate benefit to Americans so the momentary will of the people may not be what is in the people’s own best interest. This rationale is represented institutionally in the six-year term of U.S. senators, as well as by the theoretical role of the Electoral College (i.e., a state’s electors is a small group that does not have to vote in line with the majority of the vote for president in the state).

Therefore, even though it is fitting and proper in terms of representative democracy that President Obama asked for Congressional consent for limited airstrikes thwarting and punishing the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people (a sufficient number of the representatives having been privy to the classified intel), it does not follow that the representatives in turn should pass their decision on to their constituents (who will not have been privy to the intel). Furthermore, the president effectively kicked the legs out from under democracy by reserving his prerogative to act militarily in spite of the rejection by Congress of his "use of force" proposal. Either the power to declare war lies with Congress or it doesn't. Given the inherent conflict of interest in the commander in chief declaring war, the power should not be in the hands of the president.

Absent a pressing need to act militarily immediately on national security grounds, however, Congressional involvement could effectively remove the commander-in-chief's element of surprise over the adversary, hence compromising the strategic objective approved even by the U.S. House and Senate. Therefore, a proposal for your consideration:

"Whereas U.S. senators are elected by the people of the respective States (i.e., no longer by the legislatures) and have terms of six rather than two years, and

Whereas it can be rather hasty to declare war on the basis of the fuming passions of the moment, and

Whereas the U.S. House of Representatives was designed with a two-year term of office precisely to give voice to said passions,

The U.S. Senate shall, in consultation with the President (preferably in person, then absent for the vote), meet in closed session to ratify or amend the president's proposal, with appropriate instructions and immediate effect." 

Absent such an amendment being adopted, the requirement of Congressional approval from both the U.S. House and the Senate does not necessarily make it easy for members of Congress. Especially regarding matters of national security and contributing to the long-term viability of globally protective international agreements and norms, representative democracy is a tricky business.

For one thing, the institutional protections for representatives willing to vote against the popular, perhaps even momentary passions of constituents (and contributors) in order to act in the people's best interest can also enable representative, including the president, to act on the behest of American oil companies or defense contractors, for instance. Such slippage built into the political system's design is precisely why Rep. Grayson stressed that he was not acting in the financial interest of any defense contractor that stood to gain from American missile strikes. However, he opened himself up to “going with the flow” rather than leading his constituents by convincing them that it is in their long-term best interest that international norms against weapons of mass destruction are enforced.

In fact, it could even be argued that the U.S., or any country party to the treaty banning chemical weapons, has a duty to enforce said treaty even if taking action is not in the country’s national interest. I suspect that any daylight between the trajectories of a people's best interest and that of the international system of norms constraining governmental violence even on a government's own people  disappears at a sufficient distance in time. Therefore, it is reasonable to have faith that acting in the best interests of global security is really in a national interest, even if it seems otherwise at the moment.

As human organization gets ever larger and increasingly complex, as evinced by Russia (and the U.S.S.R. before it), China, the U.S. and E.U., power has occasion to become more and more centralized or consolidated. With such power comes greater responsibility, as well as discretion that can be used ethically or corruptly. In other words, the stakes rose through the twentieth century both in terms of the power that a president can unleash and the harm that could come to mankind from rogue states with chemical or nuclear weapons.

It is perfectly justifiable and entirely fitting that journalists investigate whether the people's elected representatives are too reliant on the defense contractors in what President Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex. In his farewell address, he warned of peril should the U.S. military and its contractors come to eclipse the will of the people. In decisions such as whether to enforce the international norm and treaty banning chemical weapons, the people do not have sufficient information to be justifiably the decisive factor in their representatives' decision-making. So we can tweak Eisenhower's sage advice into the following maxim: The coalescing interests of the military and its private contractors should not be allowed to dominate or even rival the people's best interest. Otherwise, the republic is lost to plutocracy and its agent, the rule that "Might makes Right."

In conclusion, there is a reason why so much time and energy goes into elections; they matter not just in terms of political ideology, but also (and perhaps more) in those decisions in which the electorate is simply not in a position to render a judgment. Accountability comes at as the prospect of being re-elected approaches. I suspect that the people, reduced to expecting the representatives to mimic the people's flavor of the month, have virtually no comprehension that the intervening time was designed on purpose to protect the representatives in office who act in the people’s best interests rather than impulsively asking, "How high should I jump?"   

Recommended Video: "Syria: From Protests to War"

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1. Ryan Grim, "Alan Grayson on Syria Strike: 'Nobody Wants This Except the Military-Industrial Complex," The Huffington Post, August 29, 2013.

2. Emily Swanson, "Syria Poll Finds Little American Support for Air Strikes," The Huffington Post, August 28, 2013.